


Doing Dishes

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:52:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock get into an argument about household chores.   Written for <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6487.html?thread=32721495#t32721495"> this prompt </a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doing Dishes

“I’m not doing them anymore, Sherlock!” John comes in from the kitchen whipping his hands on a small white towel, “I mean it this time.”

“You say that every time. You always do them, eventually.”

“Not anymore.”

Sherlock shrugs. “You’ll change your mind when they go green. You always do.”

“It isn’t safe! Mold all over the kitchen.”

“Penicillin is mold,” Sherlock smiles, sure that he’s won. “Where would we be if Alexander Fleming had cleaned out his breadbox?”

“Somebody would have worked it out, first reference to blue mold from bread was in the Royal Society in 1875, John Tyndall was behind that one. I can pop down to the chemist and get penicillin; I don’t need to try to grow it. It isn’t as simple as molding bread, anyway, you need…” John trails off suspecting Sherlock either knows how to grow all sorts of medicinal molds, or has no interest in such folly and will delete the information the moment it’s imparted.

“If you don’t wish to grow mold, do the dishes and clean out the cupboards,” Sherlock shrugs.

“I always do the dishes and clean out the cupboard,” John complains.

“Because you’re so good at it,” Sherlock smiles, the smile that always works on Molly.

“I’m getting dishpan hands!”

“I’m fairly positive they have a detergent that prevents that.”

“I cooked. You should do the dishes.”

“I hate doing dishes.”

“Why?”

“You’re the one that’s going on about the dishes. Why do you hate doing them?”

“I hate being the only one that ever does anything. I do the cooking, the cleaning, I make the tea, I go to the shops! I do the dishes.”

“It’s just so boring. You do rinse the cups. You drink a cup of tea. Suddenly, the bloody cups need another rinsing!”

“So imagine how boring it is when I’m the only one doing it!”

“Not as boring as it would be fore me.”

“Sherlock!”

“A contest?” Sherlock offers, “contests are not boring!”

“Okay, the person who can recite the fewest numbers of Pi has to do them.”

“You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”

“One of which people?” John asks unsure.

“One of the people that memorized a large portion of it when bored at school.”

“A bit, yeah,” he admits.

“Slowest person to solve the Rubik’s cube,” Sherlock offers.

“With the length and dexterity of those fingers? Not a chance.”

Sherlock shrugs, “You’ve never complained about the dexterity of my fingers before.”

John blushes, “that then?”

“What?”

“Whoever gets off first has to do the dishes.”

“I can go months,” Sherlock shrugs. “Can you go months without clean dishes?”

“Might can.”

“Can you go months without the other?” Sherlock smirked.

“You are impossible.”

“I’m quite possible, I’m not even improbable.”

“Sherlock, I put up with the heads in the fridge. I put up with the goldfish in the tub. I put up with the skull on the mantelpiece.”

“He’s not hurting anybody, why would he be something you have to put up with?”

“It’s a part of a former human in our flat.”

“You’d be more amenable to a primate skull?”

“Sherlock!”

“I’m trying to help!”

“Help by doing the bloody dishes!”

“Bloody dishes? I’d do those,” Sherlock smiled wryly.

“There will be bloody, bloody dishes if you keep…” John felt his temper rising as he spoke.

“You think you are somehow going to hurt me?”

“I’ve had military training.”

“Yeah, training patching people up.”

“You want to test me?”

“Sure, John, you cut me. Then I bleed. Then I go to wash off my cut and I get blood all over the dishes. I spread mold spores all over. You realize it’s not at all sanitary. We head off to A&E for stitches. You spend an hour chatting with somebody you thought was an idiot in school while they stitch me up.

"When we get home you realize the dishes now have mold and dried blood. They look like Christmas decorations. We argue about whether they would make an appropriate Christmas card. Then after all of that, you do the dishes to keep me from photographing them.”

“I’d make you do the bloody dishes.”

“I might get my stitches wet,” Sherlock shakes his head.

“I quit.”

“You always do. Better luck tomorrow."


End file.
